To Be or Not To Be, That is France's Question

OK so I am now going to try to catch you guys up on France... while sitting in Warsaw, Poland, on a wine media trip. I know I know it is a crazy life right now. But before the misty fog of France explorations disappear, I better get it in writing.

France, it is a land of dreams for many people. I don't know about you, but I grew up thinking France was the birth place of love. If you were in love you went to France. If you were not currently in love, then you would fall in love when you went to France. If you love food, you go to France. If you love wine, you go to France. If you love history, architecture, great art... you go to France. So when I finally got to go to Paris (the mecca of love right?) in college, with a couple of sorority sisters, I expected A LOT from the country. Being on a student's budget, staying in a hostel, during the cold rainy spring, and fighting with your friends did not make for the romance I had built up in my imagination. I still managed to have a couple epic experiences though. The first was having a warm crepe avec nutella from a street vendor after spending a frigid night in the stone jail cell we were staying in. The second was finding the most gorgeous dress I'd ever seen in a little shop on a cobblestone street, having it fit like a glove, and be massively on sale. I wore that dress to every special occasion in my life for 10 years. And the third amazing thing that Paris gave me was a bird shitting on my friend's head at the climax of her hideousness as she screamed at me in a public park. Years later my future husband and I, on one of our first dates, would bond over our stories of hardship in Paris. I guess it really is the city of love! 

In 2004 I was again in France when we followed up our incredible, tiny, Tuscan wedding with a honeymoon in Avignon. We were dirt poor, stayed in a weird run down hotel and spent all of our money on wine. Our only photos were of the rocks in the vineyards of Chateuneuf-du-Pape. By the end of the trip, we had acquired too many bottles despite spending an entire day in bed drinking. Ahhh to be young and on your honeymoon right? Our solution was to have Jesse throw away almost all of his clothes and pack his suitcase full of bottles. He still managed to clink his way through airports with over a case in his backpack alone. When stopped at immigration, he was asked if he had brought back any agricultural goods. Jess paused and said "a little wine" to which the officer replied "ahh health products!"

The rest of France held more fascination for me than Paris ever did. I had fallen down the deep, dark, hole of wine knowledge and certain wine spots carried an allure. France was actually my first country to select as one of my Master Somm Certifications. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. My next Master Somm Certificate was in Advanced Wine and Food Pairing which only intensified my love for France. The culinary flavors of France combined in subtle ways allows mixing the same few ingredients in different amounts to magically pair with vastly different wines. It was also at that time that I had my heart stollen by Cab Franc. 

A slight aside here: Cab Franc is a grape that I feel like had been hidden in the shadows of blends and obscurity for a long, long time. Sure now everyone knows and appreciates it, but a couple decades ago that was not the case, at least in the USA for sure. And when you explore the Loire Valley's fairy dust of Cab Francs, well, it is like being in a Shakespearean play - intense, dramatic, emotional, and passionate. Skip forward to 2025 and I am going to be in the Loire Valley to judge at the Mondial du Fromage. Clearly I needed to extend my travel dates and drink in the valley. 

I have been to France many times since that first Paris jaunt. My love for Strasbourg, located in Alsace, awarded me a permanent place in the tourism office as a tourist pamphlet with my published Edible Magazine article "Three Places to Drink in the Strasbourg View". I have had the honor to teach at the Universite Haute-Alsace and to host incredible VIP events at the American Consul-General's home there. I heavily considered moving to Strasbourg before we settled on Spain. Every time I return to judge there with my "wine family" at the phenomenal Mondial des Vins Blancs, I fly through Paris. Paris is lovely, by-the-way and I do enjoy adding days to play there, but it still hasn't crept into my heart. So what was the expectation of heading to the Loire? Was I expecting love like in Strasbourg or disappointment like in Paris? My anticipation was surprisingly mild, even flat. I wasn't brimming with excitement to finally be going to the famed Loire Valley or even the wine mecca city of Bordeaux. I was still warm from the new relationship I was having with Spain and didn't really want to leave. 

Flying to France after falling in love with Spain, my new home, felt like having an affair. How could I?!? Believe me, it was not my first choice to leave Spain so soon in our relationship, but come on people, I was asked to judge CHEESE! For those of you that might have missed it, I made cheese for a handful of years under my own company called "Kissable Cheeses", I really like cheese. Double down with the fact that the competition is taking place in the Loire and, well, like two star crossed lovers, I set the scene. 

Wait, wait, back up! We started in Bordeaux and it would be a travesty as a wine professional to not talk about that city. Its old city center has beautifully preserved old buildings and is filled with charming cafes, wonderful shops, and picture perfect streets. The rest of Bordeaux is a little bit less thrilling to explore. It is far larger than I had anticipated and that rich history means many many years of people treading those streets... and it shows. It is kind of like taking London's Bond Street and sticking it in the middle of the East End. I could say I probably would have enjoyed it more had I stayed in a nicer place, but budget dictated the spot. Unfortunately it meant paying way too much for a dormitory style hotel with beds harder than rocks and hidden in the back allies where dirt, dog shit, and grime all meet. I highly recommend doing a deep dive into where you will stay because having to walk through yuck really spoils the wow factor. And if you know my tweaker side, you know I seriously looked into where to stay, but once there, reading reviews with covert words, I got what they had been hinting at. Also, be rich. Yes you can eat and drink like a King in Bordeaux, but you better be as wealthy as one too. At the close of an afternoon filled with magical food and wine, shopping and falling under the spell of Place du Parlement, we retired to our strange little corner of Bordeaux and counted receipts. Perhaps it was the strain on my still not fully healed back from the recent travel day, or sleeping in the I wanna kill myself beds, but I think it was the shock of adding up my perfect day in Bordeaux that gave me a limp and a hint of depression. 

Geez Negative Nelly or what?!? Sorry, I really did enjoy Bordeaux and it really is a beautiful city. We went to the Cite du Vin Museum which I had been hearing about for ages and it was just as epic as I had hoped it would be. Still it was a strange vortex of space I was inhabiting that made it all very very surreal. I actually got homesick. I felt a deep sense of longing to be home... in Spain. 

I KNOW!!! I was doing the same thing, scratching my head wondering how I could possibly be homesick for Spain already. At one point, sitting silently at a bistro table, sipping blow your mind beautiful wine, my daughter looked at me and said "I miss Spain". A quiet, simple, truth. The revelation was poignant and allowed the haze to clear from my brain. I realized the strain of the visas was weighing heavy still, my husband and mine came through already, but my daughter's was caught up with details of proving that even though she is over 18, she is still very much a dependent. It wasn't fair to France to be visiting with this kind of pressure on my shoulders. I realized what a tragedy it was to be distracted while in these incredible places and I put my big girl panties on and got to work.

From Bordeaux we went up to Saumur. Saumur is an amazing little town filled with amazing wine, say hello to Cab Franc! Cab Franc Blanc de Noir, Cab Franc Rose (bubbly and still), Cab Francs that were delicate as a flower petal, and some aged into deep brooding strength. The town was gorgeous and catching wind of my credentials, I was offered free tours and tastings for my entire party of 4. The old city center is positively charm personified. The only bummer was to not have a car which made it impossible to get to the wineries outside of walking distance and made getting to Saumur and back out a real pain with luggage. Just get a cab you think to yourself as you read this, oh believe me we would have, but they have no cabs in town! You have to call one in advance from the town 1 1/2 hrs away. I'm telling you, rent a car in Bordeaux and drive up.

A quick train ride into Tours (where the Mondial du Fromage was taking place) was a shock. I had heard rather drab things about the small city, but it was rather beautiful and had glorious sections that made you feel like you were in a postcard that said "hi, I'm in France". Our apartment was in a quirky little spot that had so much character it could be in a book. I really liked Tours with its surprising elegance and gritty character (see I like gritty sometimes too!), but it was the morning I was going to judge that locked Tours into my forever vault of memories. 

It was early morning on a Sunday, it was misting rain making the streets wet and the air cool on your skin. I walked over the bridge in the fog, completely alone, in silence. There was only the click of my patent leather heals on the cement sidewalk making a sound. A little clearing in the fog as the sun tried to break through the grey shown on the castle in the distance and the river started to gleam in reflection. The scene looked as though it was a pastel drawing that had been gently smudged. It was exquisite. 

Perfection was brought to a screeching halt when I showed up at the wrong judging location, had to grab a taxi (taxi app in Tours), get to the venue out in the middle of nowhere, judge and then stand in the rain for 2 hours waiting for a taxi to find you. Yay!

I'll do a separate post about the cheese competition, but it was great, and I really appreciated being invited. Most of the cheeses were totally fantastic and I loved being able to take a foray into a new field of judging.

France was rather brilliant. It allowed for space and clarity after 6 weeks of confusion and stress. My mom, who is also brilliant, would time to time stop me and say "just take a moment and let it sink in, I am in Bordeaux". She did this mini meditation everywhere we went, mostly on bridges. I think it was for the view, but maybe she was tired of my complaining and was contemplating pitching me over into the rivers below. The wines were all stunning, so much more amazing than the pathetic range we get in the USA. People were lovely and helpful, and I simply can not wait to take Jesse there... in a car.

On September 15th we trained from Tours to Bordeaux and then flew to Barcelona. My new landlord picked us up and to Sitges we moved! It feels like I have been over here for 30 years. The days bleed together and I feel like I tumble through reality. Trying to grasp that I now LIVE in Spain is overwhelming and emotional while also being joyous and exciting. Sitges welcomed us warmly, it is the delight I had hoped it would be. Denali finally got her visa and the 3 of us are officially cleared to live here. We just need a billion more pages of paperwork and hoops to jump through to get the residency cards, but it is coming together, step by patent leather clackety clack step.